An increasing number of purchases are made online. In addition, the growth in mobile client devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers, has enabled consumers to make online purchases on the go. However, providing the necessary payment instrument information can be laborious when working from these types of client devices. Accordingly, it is desirable to have a secure payment mechanism that requires minimal data entry on the user's part to complete the online transaction. One way to address this situation is to store a user's payment information in a payment instrument server and to allow the user to select the payment instrument they would like to use to complete an online purchase. However, limitations to this online wallet approach exist. Primarily, regulatory limitations exist regarding how much payment information may be permanently stored on a payment instrument server. For example, current regulations mandate that a consumers card verification value (CVV) may not be stored on third party payment instrument server.
Accordingly, a need exists for providing a way to securely store verification codes, such as CVV information, apart from the rest of the payment instrument information, retrieve the verification code information and remaining payment instrument information in response to a user's initiation of an online purchase, and securely communicate the payment instrument information to an online merchant server with minimal data input from the user.
In addition, when completing online transactions, it is often the case that the consumer does not receive a final listing of items purchased in their online shopping cart, or online receipt, until after payment instrument information has been provided and processed by the merchant server. In some instances, a merchant server may not provide this information, and in other instances interruptions in communication between the purchaser's device and merchant server can result in the failure to receive a final receipt.
Accordingly, a need exists for payment process flows that ensure the purchaser receives an online receipt prior to communicating payment instrument information to a merchant server.